Good and Evil

Well, I don’t believe it’s a thing, something that exists on it’s own. As an atheist/humanist I obviously don’t believe that the devil makes people do things. That would be very convenient, but no, people do bad things because we’re human. We are responsible for our own values and rules and behavior.

I suppose that, in order to talk about what evil means to me, I should explain what atheism means to me, or rather, what kind of an atheist I am.

I think that, in America anyway, conservative Christians tell one another that atheists believe that everything is pure chance and DNA and cells and whatnot; that life has no meaning and that therefore anything goes; atheists have no morality because meaning and morality comes from God. It’s this kind of nonsense that makes Dr. Ben Carson, the number two Republican candidate for president right now, say that it’s Christian morality that makes a father jump in the water to save his drowning son.* As if non-Christians wouldn’t jump in the water to save their drowning son, or any other child for that matter.

I believe that wanting to help a child in mortal danger is a universal urge. It’s in our nature. Anyone who would only save a child because someone with authority has told him that’s the right thing to do has some serious mental problems. Evil? No. Just really troubled.

I don’t believe in good and evil as concepts we get from a god or gods or from a book. There is no such thing as a god; we humans have to determine for ourselves what is good and what is bad. And we do. Claiming that a god wants us to behave a certain way, or that bad behavior is instigated by a devil is just one of the ways in which humans deal with these concepts.

I don’t believe that good and evil are absolutes. From the beginning, humans have been group animals and as such we have had to figure out what is acceptable behavior, since our behavior affects the people around us. As societies developed, our sense of morality evolved and we started creating laws. These laws are always changing, because societies are always in flux. What was considered good or bad four thousand years ago in the Middle East is not necessarily still considered right or wrong now, at least not in the West.

I can hear conservative Christians right now saying: see, another example of atheists and their relative morality. As if Christian morality is absolute.

Christians pick and choose which morals they wish to adhere to and when as much as anyone else. Thou shalt not kill–well, except when a person is bad, then we get to put him down like a dog. Thou shalt not steal–well, except when I believe that my aversion to gay marriage is more important. Thou shalt not commit adultery–well, if I get caught I’ll just ask God for forgiveness and guess what, he always gives it. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you–well, except when we can find excuses in the Bible to hate them or to treat them as inferiors.

In other words, people decide what is right and wrong and this is always in flux. I do think that, if you look at history, humanity is gradually becoming better. As people know more–about history, our natural surroundings, the human psyche and group psychology–we become less superstitious (we no longer burn witches or believe that lightning means a god’s having a temper tantrum) and more accepting of people who are different, as long as these differences don’t hurt anyone.

We are also defining what “hurting someone” means more precisely. It’s not only killing, cheating on your wife, stealing. It’s also being racist or prejudiced toward people outside your immediate circle. It’s pedophilia, slavery, dictatorship. It’s not having empathy for others.

As information is more available, our understanding and acceptance of others grows. At the same time our understanding and anger over hurtful behavior toward others also increases.

Take the huge fire in a clothing factory in Bangladesh a few years ago. Hundreds of women died in the flames because the building wasn’t up to safety codes. With Internet, the whole world heard about it and everyone was appalled. It soon became clear that Western clothing stores were ultimately responsible and in order to save their image, they quickly made improvements to their buildings and set up a better inspection system. I don’t know anything about the follow-through, but in the short run, anyway, people decided it was wrong to have women work under such conditions and those responsible made some changes.

Yes, I’m aware I have been talking mostly about good and bad, right and wrong and not so much about good and evil. This is mainly because I associate the word evil with religion and the devil and evil as being something that exists apart from humans–something the devil introduces you to. That’s not part of my reality.

Also, when I do think of evil, I consider it to be just something extremely bad. Bad, worse, evil. And again, it’s relative. The majority of Germans had convinced themselves that systematically destroying Jews was okay; most people consider that evil. The death penalty is carried out in a “humane” way in America; torturing someone to death would be evil. But what is “humane” when it comes to killing anyone?

Well, that would depend on your ideas of right and wrong.

* I have spent hours trying to retrieve the interview where Carson said this, but all the fragments of recent interviews are about the shootings, abortion, being a real black man, etc. Apparently nobody noticed what he said here, or nobody watching thought it unreasonable or worth pointing out. Anyway, if anyone knows in which interview he said this (I think within the last week, possibly two), please let me know. I’ll keep looking, too.

What Folks Have Been Reading

Archives: The Whole Shebang

Archives: The Whole Shebang

WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING

The Indigenous nations of North America practiced slavery for various reasons, but once the Europeans came, it became commodified in a way that looked a lot more like the human trafficking we know today. The damage it did to the entire continent is mind-boggling.

In the late 60s Richard Proenneke built his own cabin in the Alaskan wilderness with only a few simple tools. He spent most of the rest of his life there. Sam Keith fleshed out Proenneke's diary of his first 16 months, when he was making his home by a lake. I love these kinds of books!

An old Oji-Cree healer and her nephew canoe down a river in Canada, away from the world of white people. They both have to come to terms with their past. The woman has lost most of her tribe and the young man is traumatized from his recent experience in the Belgian trenches of World War One. My second book by Boyden. Can't say enough about him.

An incredibly comprehensive history of everything related to slavery in the Southern United States, from the beginning of the colonies to the end of the Civil War. Over 700 pages and I took over 30 pages of notes. I will be sharing over many posts to come!

Hamid's debut novel. I love this author. A young man in Lahore, Pakistan, is the victim of love, drugs, obsession, the class system and his complete lack of self-awareness.

A golem, created in Poland and brought to life on a ship to America, and a jinni who was trapped in a flask a thousand years ago and released in New York -- the most unusual immigrants you'll ever meet.

The only part of her life a Korean woman can control is her body, so she withdraws into it. Harrowing.

Autobiography lightly disguised as a novel about the son of Southern migrants growing up on the streets of Harlem, New York City, in the 1940s and 50s. Written like you're hearing the whole story in a bar. Quite a feat.

The story of a man struggling to make a living in Morocco. No plot, no clearly defined characters, but fascinating in its authenticity.

Four generations of black women in Louisiana, from a kitchen slave in the 1830s to a 'free' woman during the Jim Crow 1930s. What they had to do to survive, to keep what they could of their family together. Powerful.

Pakistani man tells an American about his experience as a college student and employee of an assessment firm in America years ago. Smart, nuanced and pretty darn honest considering the unreliable narrator.

Wow! The answer to the inane platitudes about how all parents love their children and how children should always respect their parents. The protagonist must come to terms with his deeply flawed immigrant parents in order to change himself.

Seven short stories about life during the Kim Il-sung regime, by a writer who still lives and works in North Korea, were smuggled out of the country and translated. Mind-boggling stuff.

A 15-year-old autistic narrator wants to know who killed a neighbor's dog, and ends up much further out of his comfort zone than he planned. Wonderful read!

In politics, education, religion, agriculture, business--it turns out that dumbing down has been here from the start.

Fifty years of Istanbul seen through the eyes of a street vendor who migrates to the city as a young boy. It's also a window into the complicated dance between men and women in Turkey.

Hey, don't laugh, at least I'm trying.

A Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with six other people on a tiny island off the coast of Maine all winter in 1873. A woman in the present researching the Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with three other people on a tiny sailboat. What could possibly go wrong?

A man stuck between two worlds in more ways than one. Fascinating!

Historical novel about early contacts between first nations and the French in Canada. Beautifully written story that doesn't pull any punches. I bought his other two novels right away.

Beautifully written. By my children's favorite English and Creative Writing teacher! It's got rave reviews and we're all very proud of her.

"What a repugnant spectacle our country has become! Falsehood, cruelty and madness everywhere, and brute force in the wings waiting to finish us off. "

Suki Kim is a Korean-American journalist. She poses as an evangelical Christian posing as an English teacher at a school for the sons of North Korea's elite. Her experience and the information she manages to get via writing assignments are incredible. Definitely a lot more eye-opening that any CNN special.

This. Explains. Everything!!!

Why has Islam not undergone a reformation like Christianity? Why is it so easy for Islamic extremist groups like IS to recruit young muslims? What would it take for Islam in fundamentalist Islamic countries to enter modernity? Does the West have a role to play?

Amazing! A man wanders endlessly through a dreamscape, becoming other people, himself in the past, everything is fluid. Kafkaesque disconnect between people and their different needs.

A multi-layered novel about the history of Libya. A fast read, but one you can repeat and find something new each time.

Twelve Americans go missing in Burma/Myanmar during a tour. Touching and hilarious, but mostly hilarious.

The quote on the front mentions that these stories are exhilerating. I couldn't disagree more. They are almost unbearably painful to read, and yet I couldn't put them down. Very well done, apart from the third story, which is written in the second tense. Please let me know if you know of ONE story that works in second tense.